“What is this thing that has happened to us? It’s a virus, yes. In and of itself it holds no moral brief. But it is definitely more than a virus [that] has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
– Arundhati Roy, “The pandemic is a portal” (2020)
What is this thing that has happened to us? We begin with Roy’s question to you, and us, and extend it into post-secondary campuses, to reflect on the experiences of faculty, staff, students, and precarious workers from across India, the USA, and Canada. When the pandemic shut down in-person learning, they — you, we — found themselves — yourself, ourselves — having to navigate changes to educational processes and organize their activities through online infrastructures. To experience these infrastructures, where might you, we begin?
[[An emerging not-for-profit undergraduate school of design in India]]
[[A long-established, small, private liberal arts college within an urban center of the United States]]
[[A Canadian community college in an urban setting]]
Work Cited:
Roy, Arundhati. 2020. “The Pandemic is a portal.” Financial Times (April 3, 2020).To: Staff, Faculty, and Students
Subject: New Work Arrangement
Date: March 2020
Dear students, staff, and faculty members,
This is an unprecedented situation in our country and the whole world. Let us individually be responsible in this pandemic and amplify the government’s “Break The Chain” campaign to contain the spread of COVID-19 virus across the state.
However, to maintain academic excellence and conclude the semester on a timely basis, we will move to a "work from home" mode, starting tomorrow. Each of you is expected to follow the academic calendar, meet academic deadlines, and observe the prescribed expectations for student work and year-end faculty reports. All "work from home" assignments will be critical for students’ academic success. All students must also note that your faculty members will be available online and over the phone at any time for answering questions or concerns that emerge.
The Academic Chair will be the key contact person for all your academic matters during this time. As a reminder, [[let us not compromise the high quality of education and learning at our institution.]]
With best wishes for a successful semester,
PrincipalTo: Department Faculty, Staff, and Graduate Students
Subject: Urgent Updates
Date: March 2020
Dear Teaching Assistants:
In light of the pandemic, the campus and this department will be closing to in-person gatherings and we will be shifting our classes online effective immediately. You will be leading your seminars via Room. Please promptly make a Room account and please note that a Basic account will not suffice for teaching purposes. Be aware too that, [[in terms of etiquette, it is expected that, as the seminar lead, you have your camera on at all times during the seminar, and please share slides with students via Room’s Share Screen feature.]]
Thank you and happy teaching.
Best,
Graduate Department Chair
To: Staff, Faculty, and Students
Subject: Covid Pandemic Updates
Date: March 2020
Hello Colleagues,
I hope this email finds you well.
As you all know the world has been transformed beyond recognition by Covid-19.
It is clear that digital technology will be essential to teaching, research and administration under these truly uncertain conditions. [[We at the college feel it is urgent that this online pivot is done as smoothly and efficiently as possible.]] Students and learning are at the heart of what we do and it is imperative that we keep the college fully operational and functioning at a distance. Our institution has many faculty and staff who are experts on the use of digital technologies for educational purposes, and we will be leveraging their knowledge and expertise to roll out state-of-the-art educational technology solutions to ensure the organization runs smoothly and seamlessly. We will be using industry-standard technologies like Room, which will enable operations of the college to continue at a distance during the lockdown, and we will be offering webinars to our students and staff on how to ensure they are able to access this software.
[[We would like to ensure faculty readiness to make sure that we have mobilized all possible models of socially distanced teaching and learning.]] We would also like to make sure that our faculty are supported in the best possible way to develop, transition, and implement online teaching as they rapidly pivot to remote learning solutions and distance education. We are striving to make sure the student experience is not compromised in any way as the academic term is delivered through the digitally mediated educational technology solutions. Be rest assured that our experienced faculty will be able to help assuage whatever minimal impact the digital migration will have on students’ learning experience.
Our Centre for Teaching and Learning are developing strategies and techniques for creating community in a socially distanced university as we speak and will be in touch with you shortly to consult with you on ensuring that your courses are ready to be pivoted for online delivery in the next little and the course will be completed on schedule with minimal impact of social distancing on our teaching, learning and research culture.
Looking forward to hearing from all of you.
Best,
Associate Dean of Liberal StudiesTo: Reply All
Subject: New Work Arrangement
Dear Principal, and dear faculty members, students, and administrative colleagues,
These uncertain times of the pandemic will require us to be remote and online until it is safe for us to return to the physical campus. We will follow the state and national COVID-19 guidelines for higher educational institutions and campus residences, and take decisions about reopening as a collective.
While the institution’s subscription to Goggle educational workspace, including your access to Goggle Meet and Goggle Drive will continue without interruption, [[I do not expect our immediate move to "work from home" mode to be as smooth, or remain as uninterrupted.]] We may find ourselves logging in from spaces busy or small; internet connectivity erratic or slow; homes with people distant or close; stresses personal and familial; and questions about maintaining a good academic standing both contested and uncertain. We may also find ourselves sharing and planning for far more responsibilities at home than usual, caring for our loved ones, and trying to keep focus. As a community, let us post reminders to each other about what is at stake in the context of pandemic learning and teaching lest we fail in adjusting or our adjustments fail us.
Starting tomorrow, the faculty cohort will shift away from weekly administrative meetings to protect time for quiet and work, and to balance out a continuous range of engagements that we have otherwise been participating in or scheduling with our colleagues and students this semester.
The priority for me is our mental and physical health, so please take care of your energy levels and reach out to me with any concerns that you may have as a student, faculty colleague, or staff member at this institution.
In community,
Academic ChairTo: Reply All
Subject: New Work Arrangement
Date: April 2020
Dear Colleague,
As a wellness coordinator, and following our revised academic plan, I have been meeting with the undergraduate student groups regarding their well-being and educational challenges in these remote and online environments. Through phone and video calls, students have opened up about their hopes and struggles with me, and a lot of them find it difficult to access online spaces or even stay online for extended periods of studio and seminar work due to inconsistent and even absent internet connectivity across the state, or within limited data plans and financial securities. From joining on mobile phones at roadside tea stalls to connecting from terraces or family members’ homes where there is a greater possibility for a stable internet, these students are navigating academic expectations under extreme duress.
As we move through this extended remote semester, [[it would be useful for us to recalibrate synchronous and asynchronous project engagements and pedagogical formats.]] I am copying everyone on this email with students' permission and following your invitation to continue to post community reminders regarding teaching and learning in pandemic times. Thank you for your consideration.
Best wishes,
Wellness Coordinator
To: Reply All
Re: Urgent Updates
Date: March 2020
Hi Graduate Department Chair,
Thanks for this update. I am appreciative that the department is making moves to try to keep our community safe during this pandemic by halting in-person classes and gatherings.
However, I do have some concerns and considerations I wanted to raise. What is our department — and the institution more broadly — doing to structurally support graduate student teaching assistants in successfully continuing to teach during this shift to online learning? For instance, my seminars have 30 students, but [[I do not have an internet connection sufficient to hold a 30-person Room call while having my camera on and sharing my screen, nor do I currently have the financial ability to pay for such a connection.]] Given that high-speed internet is now integral to my role as a teaching assistant, I believe that the department should provide this infrastructure for its instructors. Furthermore, there has been no information about how the institution and department will help us access licensed Room accounts. Are teaching assistants expected to pay for our own licensed Room accounts?
Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Best,
PhD Candidate and Teaching AssistantTo: Reply All
Re: Re: Urgent Updates
Date: March 2020
Dear PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant,
Thanks for letting me know your concerns.
With regards to your concerns about a Room account, please be aware that, if you sign up for a Room account using your institutional email address, the account will be licensed. The institution is generously providing this Room access to all of its members during the course of this pandemic.
Now, in terms of your concerns about internet connection — internet connection is widely accessible throughout the city, and it seems to me that, since you have been able to respond to my initial email update, you do have ready internet access or, at the very least, you know of someone whose internet you can use.
However, [[if you feel that you are not currently able to fulfill your teaching obligations due to the circumstances of the pandemic, please know that we can find someone who can take over your seminars for the remainder of the semester.]] Let me know as soon as possible if you would like us to seek a replacement teaching assistant. I hope that this offer helps alleviate any undue stress.
Stay safe!
Best,
Graduate Department ChairTo: Union Steward
Re: Covid Pandemic Updates
Date: March 2020
Dear Union Steward,
I hope this email finds you well in these truly distressing times.
I wanted to bring to your attention as our union steward some of the problematic things that I noted in our Associate Dean’s email to the faculty regarding the pivot to online instruction, firstly the use of proctoring software to surveil student exams at home and secondly, the adoption of teaching material from e-textbook vendors writ large.
The potential merger of the world’s two publishing giants would make them the largest publishing house on the planet. The sharks are circling the waters. The mergers and acquisitions that are happening in the sector suggest that these players no longer just offer textbooks. They include several goodies to go with the combo meals that they sell. Lecture slide decks, animations and videos, multiple-choice question banks and most recently a large publishing house has partnered with a proctoring company to offer remote exam invigilation services if you're subscribed to their platform. The shift here is that the book publishing house no longer offers just a book - they have so many other add-on features to sweeten the deal. e.g. AI can deal with the drudgery of grading now according to the new publishing platform, which is only available to those schools and professors that are locked into the platform ecosystem that the publishing house dictates. You are locked into the walled garden of products and services as devised and directed from them.
Moreover, the growing amount of student data amassed through digital courseware will make the large textbook publishing houses attractive targets for consumer credit bureaus, recruiting agencies, data vendors, who would find access to alternative data about students highly valuable.
Cheers,
Sessional Instructor
Which infrastructure might you wish to experience next?
[[A Canadian community college in an urban setting]]
[[An emerging not-for-profit undergraduate school of design in India]]
[[A long-established, small, private liberal arts college within an urban center of the United States]]
[[A digital otherwise]]To: Colleague
Re: Covid Pandemic Updates
Date: March 2020
Hi Colleague,
I hope this email finds you well in these truly distressing times.
I wanted to reach out to you because I find the Associate Dean’s email rather concerning. I don’t think that email really quite gets to the matter of faculty readiness and institutional support. It is quite disheartening how so many of our real-life concerns have been flattened out in that email. I don’t quite get what kind of support and help we are getting here. I feel there’s a tethering of our home internet connection, personal computer and our work that is happening here that is not being addressed at all. Let me elaborate: In order for the instructor’s virtual classes to go right, the hardware has to work right, the software has to work right, the network connection has to work right, if and only if all these media architectures nod their heads in harmony, can the virtual instructor deliver their classes.
Where our reliability as instructors (Can you hear me now??) and trustworthiness (Oops! Sorry, I have a faulty connection!) are tethered to the kind of internet connections we have at home. So rather than the virtual classroom championing underprivileged students, it will stratify our classrooms evermore. We as virtual instructors are both yoked to the tech that we have access to, so what that means is we are only as good as our internet connection, our laptop, and the software on our machine. Moreover, what is troubling is the likelihood that the state of exception becomes the new norm. i.e. Post-Covid-19, the Covid-austerity measures will in all likelihood be implemented, at which time, virtual instructors will find the supports that are available as stop-gap measures will be clawed back, with the virtual class option dangled as a cost-effective option for hyflex (hybrid and flexible) learning, one in which sessional instructors like myself will be expected to do all the work and receive little to no institutional help.
Cheers,
Sessional Instructor
Which infrastructure might you wish to experience next?
[[A Canadian community college in an urban setting]]
[[An emerging not-for-profit undergraduate school of design in India]]
[[A long-established, small, private liberal arts college within an urban center of the United States]]
[[A digital otherwise]]To: Reply All
Subject: New Work Arrangement
Dear Wellness Coordinator,
Thank you so much for reaching out to the students at all academic levels and representing their concerns with consent on this shared email thread. I have taken note of these challenges and reached out to the Principal and members of the management team for advice regarding pooling resources for purchasing adequate internet plans for any and all students, faculty colleagues, and staff members seeking reliable network connectivity.
My thanks are also to the students for sharing their challenges with us directly and across these different fora. With limited IT support and administrative strength, we are currently also looking into the possibility of sharing internet connectivity remotely.
In the meantime, and to all my faculty colleagues, please make edits to your respective course plans and continue to center the question of academic excellence away from its pre-pandemic framings. Thank you all for your cooperation.
Best wishes,
Academic Chair
To experience another campus setting and infrastructure, where might you, we continue?
[[A Canadian community college in an urban setting]]
[[A long-established, small, private liberal arts college within an urban center of the United States]]
[[A digital otherwise]]To: PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant
Re: Re: Urgent Updates
Date: March 2020
Dear PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant,
I am so sorry that the department is once again neglecting and, quite frankly, undermining the needs of its graduate students and most precarious workers. Please let me offer a small gesture of support given my privilege as a full professor and my role as your supervisor. I am happy to pay for adequate internet connection for your apartment for the remainder of this term, so that you may successfully fulfill your online teaching duties this semester.
Best,
Full Professor and Doctoral Supervisor
Where might you, we continue?
[[A Canadian community college in an urban setting]]
[[An emerging not-for-profit undergraduate school of design in India]]
[[A digital otherwise]]The combined emails illuminate both the material infrastructure of the institutions under discussion, and congruities of managerial problem-solving using educational technologies across countries. Our story now shifts into imagining a digital otherwise, or to cite Roy “a gateway between one world and the next” in [[The Pandemic Is A Portal]] (2020). To read further, proceed to Manifold.